The Lifespan of a Literary NFT vs
The Lifespan of a Literary Blog Post

You might be wondering: what’s the difference between putting work on the traditional web in [insert any literary magazine name here] and putting work on the blockchain and publishing with Atticus Review? Why is this a better way to publish creative work?

It mostly comes down to three things:

1. the establishment of provenance and originality in work
2. the free and unregulated exchange of value for that work
3. the ability for work to generate royalties for both the writer and for the magazine.

To illustrate the value blockchain can bring to publishing literary work, let’s take a hypothetical look at the lifespan of two different publishing trajectories:

1. the traditional web route, which has been essentially the same since 2003 when WordPress and other content management systems launched and started becoming widely used; and…
2. the blockchain route.

The Traditional Web Route

Here’s what happens to a piece of writing published in every online literary magazine:

1. The work’s text is put into a content management system (CMS) and formatted on the traditional web. Often the CMS is WordPress. WordPress started in 2003 as a blogging platform. An even earlier version of web publishing software was Open Diary, which launched in 1998. The early Internet was all about the free exchange of information, and for that objective, these platforms rocked. But back then, nobody was really worrying about what to do about value exchange when it came to the things being published. In fact, the very idea of “value” for a blog post seemed kind of ridiculous. It was ingrained in our consciousness early on that things on the Internet held no value.

2. The work posted through WordPress receives a web address or URL from the publishing platform and the writer and magazine. The URL is shared with hundreds, thousands, or now maybe millions of people over social media. Readers can interact with that content by giving it a “Like” or commenting on it. One notable thing they cannot do is BUY it.

3. The magazine may give the author a one-time payment for their work, but that payment is not tied to any kind of tangible digital asset or contract. Potentially the payment could afford the author a sandwich. Despite its complete inadequacy to pass as a serious value exchange, many in the indie lit world have come to think of this type of payment as legitimate “compensation.” If there is a payment at all, there is no further potential value exchange for the writer or for the magazine when it comes to the submitted work.

4. The work published in the literary magazine remains online so long as the magazine remains solvent and online. If the magazine folds, the work theoretically still has a “life” on the Internet Archive (aka the Wayback Machine). However, there is still no value inherent in the work: it cannot be owned, exchanged, bought, or sold.

5. Because the work can never be “owned” or “collected” as a verifiable digital artifact with inherent provenance and provable originality, the idea of it ever earning “royalties” for future sales is nonexistent. Under a traditional web publication model, the concept of “ownership” of the piece itself is meaningless.

The Blockchain Route

Now let’s look at the potential of what could happen to a piece of writing published both on the web and simultaneously released on the blockchain. To be clear, Atticus Review still does not fully reflect all aspects of this model because the implementation for a complete solution would be very costly at this moment in history and there is not wide-enough adoption to justify it; however, we are taking baby steps toward a more robust vision, and I will show you how below.

1. The first step in the blockchain route is somewhat the same. The work is still published on the web and it receives a URL from the publishing platform. That URL is accessible to anybody with a web browser. However, additionally, an NFT (or collection of NFTs) is created for the work on an NFT creation platform. There are different tools for different blockchain platforms.

2. The URL can still be distributed to followers on social media. Users can still “Like” and comment on the work either on a blog platform or on social media outlets like Facebook, X, Threads, etc. The one difference is that a user can also buy or COLLECT the work.

3. The magazine still might give a writer an up-front payment for their work, but the big difference here is that the writer is the direct beneficiary of the initial sale of the work. Upon sale and “minting” of the work, cryptocurrency is distributed automatically into the writer’s wallet based on a pre-determined percentage decided upon by the magazine and the writer. An important note here is that the payment is not dependent on the magazine sending the writer the money or doing any accounting work. Rather, the payment is deposited immediately into the writer’s digital wallet without any involvement or interference by a third party.

4. If the magazine folds or ceases operation, the original URL may still disappear from the web, but the work itself would still exist as a digital asset on the blockchain. It could of course be re-published elsewhere and assigned a new URL (the same is true with the traditional way of publishing); however, an immutable record of the creation and collection history will exist for the digital asset (NFT) on the blockchain. More importantly, the digital asset could always still be collected and exchanged on an open marketplace. While the work can be removed from circulation, the origination record or marker for it will always remain on the blockchain.

5. Because the original work remains associated with the original digital contract, if the work is collected or exchanged in an open marketplace, all the wallets associated with that contract would receive funds for those future transactions. Simply put, this means the writer would earn royalties for any future exchange of their work. No third party (including the original magazine) is required to participate or be involved in the transaction for these royalties to be distributed.

How This Looks Now with Atticus Review

Here’s how some of this looks currently with our Literary NFTs. All of Atticus Review’s NFTs become Verified Collections on the jpg.store NFT Marketplace. This is just one NFT Marketplace, but there are many others that exist on different blockchains. When somebody buys or “mints” an NFT on our site, the NFT shows up on jpg.store as part of a collection. The person who owns that NFT in their wallet can visit jpg.store, connect their wallet and list the NFT for sale on that marketplace. As long as the blockchain exists, the NFT will exist. An immutable record of the transactions involving that literary NFT will always be visible and the Literary NFT can be traded forever, even if the magazine eventually folds.

As an example, here’s the collection page for one of our NFT Collections, “A Misplaced Tropical Pond Leads to a Feminist Daydream” by Marcia LeBeau.

Any NFT from this collection that is sold on Atticus Review will appear on this page. If the owner of that NFT wishes to trade it on the open marketplace they can list it for sale by visiting jpg.store, connecting the wallet that holds the NFT, and listing the NFT for sale.

Here’s the page where all of Atticus Review’s minted collections can be found after they are minted and moved into a wallet.

Now, you might look at a site like jpg.store, and say “why would I ever want my work to be listed on a marketplace like that?” And I sympathize with that perspective. The early adoption and use cases for NFTs are largely coming from the realms of geeks and gamers. The visual aesthetic of these marketplaces reflect that fact.

Eventually, however, I see literary magazines having their own marketplaces to exchange literary NFTs. And as such, I see “literary marketplaces” starting to become more aesthetically interesting and actually more like magazines in their own right, where NFTs aren’t just bought and sold, but collections can be put on display, the same way they might be in a museum. This would take the digital work out of the confines of whatever magazine published it, and into the hands of the collectors and readers.